


what we want but cannot have

by The-Immortal-Moon (LunaKat)



Series: What We Are (FMA Angst Week 2018) [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, FMA Angst Week 2018, Prompt Fic, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-18 19:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/The-Immortal-Moon
Summary: For FMA angst week 2018. Day 4: Death or SacrificeSomething has been going wrong for some time now.





	what we want but cannot have

**Author's Note:**

> **Death**  
>  (noun)  
> \--the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism  
> \--the destruction or permanent end of something.

Something is wrong.

No, scratch that.

Something has been going wrong for some time now.

Sig said not to worry, but Izumi insisted something didn’t feel right when the baby began to kick less and less until it stopped entirely. A flutter of anxiety wedged its way into her chest, right in the space between her lungs, and would not leave her in peace. They haven’t yet seen a doctor about the sudden lack of activity, but they will tomorrow—and hell, maybe she _is_ just being overcautious, but better safe than sorry, right?

In the middle of the night, she wakes with a gasp to soaked sheets and splitting pain in her abdomen. She barely manages to swallow a scream, her breath coming out in ragged gasps that scrape the inside of her throat as they leave her.

At her side, Sig rouses, blinking blearily. “...Izumi? What’s going—”

“Doctor,” she manages to choke out. This can’t be happening. It can’t be. The baby isn’t due for another seven weeks.

He straightens at that, and she catches a flicker of alarm before another contraction hits—this one is so powerful that her vision actually blurs and darkens for a moment. His hand roughly grips her shoulder in what is probably meant to be an act of reassurance. She clasps her own hand over it, squeezing in return. Then his presence vanishes from her side, footfalls retreating into the living room.

Another wave of fiery pain rolls through her. She chokes on a shout. She’s always heard that childbirth is painful and thought she was prepared but _God_ —even for a woman that managed to survive the Briggs wilderness, this is _too much_ —

“ _Fuck_.” She sinks her fists into the sheets, jaw clenching so hard she thinks her teeth might break. This is no way to deliver new human beings into the world. What sort of inane, misogynistic bastard creator decided that in order for children to be born, women had to undergo such a torturous, agonizing experience? She’d like to find that asshole and punch him in his damn _face._

Light suddenly floods the room. Sig, returned with a kerosene lamp in one hand. The ochre glow casts dark, concerned shadows across his face and deepens the furrow in his brow. “The doctor says he’ll be here in an hour.”

“Can’t—” _son of a fucking bitch_ “—wait that long! Baby’s coming—” _fucking hell, fuck fuck fuck_ “— _now_.”

His arm drapes her shoulders, the weight of it comforting in a way only it can be. “Just hang on, okay?”

Spirits, she’s crying. There are actual fucking _tears_ in her eyes. “I’m _trying_.”

First births are notoriously slow, but no one ever mentioned how intense it is, how _painful,_ how each contraction is white-hot and erases the coherency of thought from her mind. Suddenly there is a doctor there, when did he get here, she doesn’t even know, fuck.

“You’re doing fine, Mrs. Curtis,” says the doctor, but he doesn’t sound very convincing. “Just push, okay?”

“I _am_.” Fucking idiot! Where did Sig find this numbskull? And who gave him a fucking medical license in the first place?

She looks down at the sheets. They are dark red and slick with wetness. Oh shit, that’s blood, isn’t it? That’s fucking blood and there’s way too much and that’s _bad_ , right? Of _course_ it’s bad! There shouldn’t be that much _blood_ —

Another contraction hits her and her vision goes white for a moment, then black. When her eyes snap open again, the doctor is gone. The sheets are changed, thought there is still the faint, coppery stench of blood that lingers in the air, along with a reek of what she thinks might be amniotic fluid and afterbirth. Sig hovers over her with eyes that are wet but not spilling over, and she is cradled between his arms as one might something precious and breakable.

“Sig?” she croaks. Every inch of her _aches_. It feels like someone took her and wrung her out like a wet rag. “What... what happened?”

Sig doesn’t say anything, just clutches her a little tighter.

It hits her, suddenly, that he shouldn’t be able to pull her so close with baby in the way. Her hand slides down to her stomach and finds that it has smoothed over, no trace of the previous bulk.

Panic rises in her throat. “The baby. Where’s—”

“I almost lost you,” he says quietly, and she falls quiet. 

* * *

She never does get to see the baby. Corpse. Fetus. What the fuck ever.

Instead she hears the clinical explanation from the bumfuck of a doctor who tells her that stillbirth occurs somewhere between twenty and twenty-eight weeks. There is no way to prevent it, and he tries to emphasize that, but the words go right over her head. All she can do is stare numbly at the wall, one hand still resting on her abdomen and trying to comprehend what went wrong.

Sig does not stop holding her. Apparently there was a lot of blood and—maybe a seizure(?). He doesn’t really elaborate, and the doctor too seems very reluctant to talk about her apparent near-death. Fuck, she doesn’t even _remember_ that.

 _The baby was already dead_. Rhythmically, she rubs her stomach, half-expecting to feel something kick. _The longer it stayed inside you, the higher the risk it could have killed you. You’re very, very lucky to have survived, Mrs. Curtis._

Lucky, the bastard says! Fucking _lucky_.

The next day she does not leave her bed. She cries and cries and cries into her pillow. Sig strokes her hair and brings her hot soup and tries to comfort her as best he can, but he doesn’t understand. He didn’t kill their child with his body. He isn’t the one responsible for their child being born lifeless and still.

How is it fair that she lived, but her child didn’t? In what world is that fair? If given the opportunity, she would gladly trade her life for the baby’s, but life doesn’t work that way.

Fuck. She doesn’t even know if the baby was a boy or a girl.

**Author's Note:**

> I wholeheartedly believe that Izumi would curse violently all throughout labor.


End file.
